This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Our civilization… is not devaluing its awareness of the unknowable; nor is it deifying it. It is the first civilization that has severed it from religion and superstition in order to question it.
Awareness | Civilization | Order | Question | Religion | Superstition | Awareness |
In the domain of feeling, what is real is indistinguishable from what is imaginary. And if it is sufficient to imagine one loves, in order to love, so it is sufficient to say to oneself that when one loves one imagines one love, in order to love a little less... But if one is able to say such a thing to oneself, must one not already love a little less?
The common character of all evil is that its realization in fact involves that there is some concurrent realization of a purpose towards elimination. The purpose is to secure the avoidance of evil. The fact of the instability of evil is the moral order in the world.
Character | Evil | Instability | Order | Purpose | Purpose | World |
When occasions present themselves, in which the interests of the people are at variance with their inclinations, it is the duty of the persons whom they have appointed to be the guardians of those interests, to withstand the temporary delusion, in order to give them time and opportunity for more cool and sedate reflection.
Delusion | Duty | Opportunity | Order | People | Present | Reflection | Time |
For the Founders, minorities are in general bad things, mostly identical to factions, selfish groups which have no concern as such for the common good... The Founders wished to achieve a national majority concerning the fundamental rights and then prevent that majority from using that power to over turn those fundamental rights. In 20th Century social science, however, the common good disappeared and along with it the negative view of minorities. The very idea of majority... is done away with in order to protect the minorities
The fact of instability of evil is the moral order of the world.
Evil | Instability | Order | World |
In order to judge properly, one must get away somewhat from what one is judging, after having loved it. This is true of countries, of persons, and of oneself.
Order |
The writer writes in order to teach himself, to understand himself, to satisfy himself; the publishing of his ideas, though it brings gratification, is a curious anticlimax.
Ideas | Order | Teach | Understand |
In order to be utterly happy, the only thing necessary is to refrain from comparing this moment with other moments in the past - which I often did not fully enjoy because I was comparing them with other moments of the future.